Whilst I agree with the comments that the event was poorly run and it was to the Aussie's credit that they stepped up to ensure it was actually an event, the rest of it regarding the selection process and the reasons would have to be the biggest load of self serving drivel I've ever read on this forum. No doubt it will be deleted by the author very quickly. Go ahead I dare you.
Diggs

As a matter of interest Bill, who and how decided this "new" selection criteria now?
You mentioned the RBA committee? But half of them are overseas aren't they? Besides that how would they get to consult with the shooters they represent within their State about this. Why does it need to happen so urgently anyway?
The first qualifying event is Sydney. For those keen they should approach it as trying to get the best results they can. No one ever shoots as a team here so it's all about shooters shooting to get the best result.

For what it's worth I think this world body, WRABF is rapidly loosing credibility. At meetings they held in Pilzen they appear to have changed a lot of rules. Certainly some rules which affect the equipment changes. One example is, deciding to change IS class scope magnification from 6.5x to 12x. No notice, no consultation with the actual shooters of the world. The VAST majority of which are not actually at that championships in Pilzen. Lots and lots of other things we hear about too, but not confirmed as far as rule changes go. Possibly targets. Rests. Yet this organisation still can't get the basics right. They don't seen focused on those. Only some self interests maybe. The fundamentals for an organisation running the only championships which they are responsible for, World events, are things like a credible scoring system and a proper results service. Something that repeatably fails.

I also feel it would be important to first hear directly from all of the shooters who are returning from Pilzen what their individual reports are. In regards to selections and to their results. There sure could be some other circumstances affecting the results here, including but not only, the quality of ammo available in Australia laterly. It is a world wide problem for sure, yet a larger problem for countries like us who have access to smaller choices.

For what it's worth I think a major issue not fully understood in these selection criteria's is...the focus is on selecting TEAMS. Selecting TEAMS of shooters representing Australia. Yet the whole events (World Champs and World Cups) of the WRABF are not really about proper team event shooting anyway. This comment might offend some people but...think hard about it. In reality the way this whole thing is setup is...they are championships for individuals and team results for each team is calculated out of the individual results. This is not any criticism at all of the results Australian shooters have obtained as a team. Often bloody amazing given these circumstances. The squadding etc just is focused on individuals shooting. In fact it is possible and happens often that you could be in a team with 2 other shooters, yet 2 of you get to be on exactly the same relay at the same time!
It has happened in WRABF teams and I have been on teams where that happened.
Also note the rules allow every team to be finally nominated just prior to start of actual shooting. It seems to me it was always the intention of the WRABF to be individual shooting event? A teams thing was an add on.
It would be interesting to evaluate properly how other countries decide their shooters? On individual results and then their batch their teams at the Championships? In Australia's case the "selected" teams don't change, but other countries can and do that get changed.
If I understand this "new" Australia selection criteria correctly it will basically be 3 Gun results for selection of the Rimfire shooters? That obvious totally favors the good IS shooters in reality. Also means those who just do not shoot IS get no chance to be selected? Seems odd. Lots of good shooters do not even shoot IS. So all this highlights a problem when you focus on a selection of "Teams".

Always been my opinion, proper Team shooting is carried out differently and better in other Benchrest shooting events (for World Championships), compared to what happens in WRABF.
In the others the bench squadding and rotation is carried out with the countries teams allocated. Then the 1st shooters from each country shoot in the first relay, the 2nd shooters from each country shoot 2nd relay etc. It is "shoulder to shoulder" country verses country. Team Vs team. It also allows each shooter in the one team to more directly work together as they follow each other in turn. Never shoot on the same relay.
Some may disagree with me. But I do have a lot of experience with proper team shooting including Benchrest Centrefire World Championships. That is essentially a Teams (country Vs Country) event and the individual results are pulled out at the end. Then also the Benchrest Rimfire WBSF World Championships who have proper team shooting for first two days, then after that, different squatting for proper individual shooting for next two days. Two distinct results. These two examples of team shooting are very competitive and very difficult.

Of course the other major problem with WRABF is so many rifle classes. It's OK to have a lot of classes but how do you expect shooters who may also qualify for the Rimfire teams and Air Rifle teams and need to take up to 6 rifles each?
Sure, I know many say just share. Gotta tell you though, ....... that is just BS for a World Championships.

Just my two cents worth. I have no skin in this game as I am not trying to make "teams" or qualify necessarily anymore. I would just like to see some sanity and good outcomes that all shooters feel is fair and credible.

Wrabf 2023 pilsen
Small report not going into huge detail
Take aside what we know re organisation and the amount of help team Australia did to help run the competition

Big positives Sonia and glen did a great job as captains
The Team spirit was high everyone gained some new friends and the support given to the junior shooters from team members was excellent .

As Bill acknowledged we probably need to compete a bit more in air rifle , but as a competitor the knowledge gained talking to the members of countries that specifically shoot air I have picked up some very helpful information I don’t think our skill level is below par it’s more the understanding of the rifles bar pressure and the way they sort pellets etc ,

Rimfire all
Members shot well some stand out performances

One thing I did notice and what I believe will improve us going forward is the selection policy
For the individuals that shot air then the rimfire and spent trigger time on the range form picked up , working out range conditions, wind etc As the event unfolded

for those who only shot 1 event say heavy
I believe they struggled with the lack of trigger time
a 3 day break between practices and comp day and with so many team members on practice day only shot 2 cards each

I believe a strong team of 6-9 shooting all 3 rimfire events would lift our results dramatically

Usually the highest scores in the 3 events will be in the top 9 of the 3 gun anyway
We are the only county that send multiple teams per each class and seem to be behind the 8 ball so fact or fiction ???
Like I have said teams don’t need to be set can change per event to suit each event

Yeah let’s make it $100 though at least one of us can buy a decent bottle

How many from the top of each event didn’t go because they only made the one event a small minority can afford to go shoot one event but if shooting 3 would have gone eg brett Wilson proven world class shooter
Then we have Rebecca’s unfortunate circumstances
Then we have the vacant spots given back where shooters could have shot as individuals and gained trigger time
So many different circumstances lead to minimal medals
Again picking the teams over there could have helped
Had David keen shoot good in sporter and awesome in lv but couldn’t shoot hv because teams were locked in

So u don’t believe that the top 3 from 3 gun , then top 3 from heavy then top 3 from lv would give us a better chance than taking the top 9 from each event ? With some people only shooting 1 event

Only 3 members are picked from the 3 gun
The other 6 would be picked from results in hv and lv

We had more spots available in Brisbane, there are more shooter now from other countries so taking only 6-9 shooters is even hard we only had 6 spots for hv then 2 junior and one individual makes selection harder than past events

Time for my 2c worth this is long so don’t read if it does not affect you.
Sorry I have been slow replying but my two night jobs have kept me very busy and I wanted to do my research first.
Disclosure I am a current RBA committee member and have some insight to some of the questions and issues raised on this thread.
Most of the discussion seems to be around Bill’s statement. “The new qualifier devised by our RBA Committee and ratified by the TRA Board will I believe give Australia a stronger team and much better chance at medals”.
As Bill explained to Stuart this is not a decision the committee made in isolation or recently. Well before the 2022 nationals a meeting was planned and advertised as best as we could both prior to the event and during the event. There was a good role-up of shooters at the meeting and selection policy was discussed as one of the major issues. The majority censes at the meeting was to return to the selection policy that was used prior to the Brisbane world titles 2015 selection method, which is similar to the policy being used for 2025.
The policy was changed for Brisbane 2015, being a “home” event there was not the perceived disadvantages of traveling to the other side of the world, so a wider team selection made sense. Given not as many from the rest of the world travelled to Australia this also opened more opportunities to add additional team members to fill vacant spots. Good results followed and some on this forum would have you believe that the team selection was the cause of the better results. I would argue the home ground advantage was the main reason for better results.
After Brisbane 2015, the selection policy was returned to the old system used prior to 2015 and things moved along. The first selection event was run in Melbourne with this policy advertised and it was not until there were major changes at the RBA committee that the selection policy for South Africa was changed. The new committee decided to change the policy before the 2nd qualifying event for SA to be like the Brisbane system. I don’t know of any meetings with shooters that took place for this change, I am not aware of any shooter consultation, I certainly wasn’t asked! But the change was made, and the team went to SA.
The results from SA are not complete on the website but I think Australia adult shooters got one individual and one team medal best I can tell (could be wrong). I think the Juniors got a further five medals.
Similar selection policy was used for Pilsen and the team returned from Pilsen with one senior medal and five junior medals.
Why have I separated the two medal classes? Well Neil’s comment “Would you like to bet me $50 that a team based on the new selection policy will bring home more medals from Finland in 2025 than we did in 2023?” made me go looking.
In Pilsen there were over 120 Snr shooters in every event but in the Jnr events there were 7 in each of the Air events, we had 1 Jnr shooter in each of these events for no medals. There were 4 Jnrs in Sporter, 2 of them from Australia. LV and HV rimfire events had 5 Jnr shooters each with 2 Aus shooters in each. Fact, in Sporter both of our Jnr shooters could have closed their eyes and only fired 1 shot at the target and one of them would have won bronze. I am certain you can see what I am saying. Now that makes me sound harsh, and I don’t mean to be Cameron Frost shot incredibly well for 10th in the 3 gun outright. Top 10 at the world titles in the 3 gun is an amazing achievement that should be recognised.
Neil’s bet is pretty safe, because he counts the Jnr medals for his bet, and I guess to follow this logic we should send a team of 6 Jnrs to Finland because that will be by far our best chance of winning medals.
So why are Jnrs not in the current selection policy for Finland. More history, in the past we routinely received 12 places for these events top 9 for Snr shooters and 3 for Jnr shooters. For Pilsen and I guess for every event that will be held in the Northern hemisphere from now on we will not get 12 positions, we are only guaranteed 6. The RBA selection policy for Pilsen had places guaranteed for the Jnrs and after Brisbane the RBA committee decided not to include Jnrs selection in the top 6 or even 9 positions. To be honest I feel this was a knee jerk reaction made by the committee due to comments made by some of the Jnr shooters at the Brisbane 2022 national titles and we are trying very hard to correct the situation for Finland but with only 6 spots on the team it might be difficult. But at least we have tried in the past and into the future we will try, how does SSAA go with the 10 person teams they send the rimfire Benchrest world titles?.
Part of my research was to check team size and try and justify Scott’s comments that the larger team hurt our results. To my surprise Australia was not the largest team in attendance, we were the 2nd largest but a few other countries were very similar, and they got better results. There goes that theory, and I believed it before I checked.
This research revealed an interesting statistic. South Africa had 17 shooters in both Air events, 13 shooters in Sporter and Rimfire LV and 11 and Rimfire HV by far the biggest team. I guess it helps if your country has the sitting president at the time of place allocations.
Brett